Update: July 3, 2010 Problems on Low-dimensional Topology Edited by T. Ohtsuki1 This is a list of open problems on low-dimensional topology with expositions of their history, background, signi¯cance, or importance. This list was made by editing manuscripts written by contributors of open problems to the problem session of the conference \Intelligence of Low-dimensional Topology" held at Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Kyoto University in June 2{4, 2010. Contents 1 Surjective homomorphisms between 2-bridge knot groups 2 2 Extensions of Burau representation of the braid groups 2 3 A conjugation sub-quandle of PSL(2; Fq) 3 4 Ck-concordance among string links 6 5 Planar algebras 7 6 The Rasmussen invariant of a knot 8 7 Exceptional surgeries on knots 11 8 Minimal dilatation of closed surfaces 13 9 The magic \magic manifold" 14 10 The w-index of surface links 15 11 Invariants of 3-manifolds derived from their covering presentation 16 12 Sutured manifolds and invariants of 3-manifolds 17 13 Sutured Floer homology 18 1Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8502, JAPAN Email: [email protected] 1 1 Surjective homomorphisms between 2-bridge knot groups (Masaaki Suzuki) Let K be a knot in S3 and G(K) the fundamental group of the complement 3 S ¡ K. We write K1 ¸ K2 if there exists a surjective homomorphism from G(K1) onto G(K2). It is well known that this relation ¸ is a partial order on the set of prime knots. This partial order is determined on the set of prime knots with up to 10 crossings in [50]. Furthermore this result is extended to the set of prime knots with up to 11 crossings in [30]. In this section, we focus on surjective homomorphisms between 2-bridge knot groups. Schubert showed that 2-bridge knots are classi¯ed by Schubert normal forms, which are rational numbers. Let K(r) denote the 2-bridge knot corresponding to a rational number r. Ohtsuki-Riley-Sakuma [73] gave a systematic construction which, for a given 2-bridge knot K(r), provides surjective homomorphisms from K(~r) onto K(r). On the other hand, Lee-Sakuma [52] showed that the converse statement holds in a sense, that is, they describes all upper-meridian-pair-preserving surjective homomorphisms between 2-bridge knot groups. The following is a very simple question about this subject. Question 1.1 (M. Suzuki). Does there exist a 2-bridge knot which surjects simul- taneously onto G(31) and G(41)? The author con¯rmed that there exists no such 2-bridge knot with up to 20 crossings. The above problem is one of the simplest model of the following problem. Problem 1.2 (M. Suzuki). For given two rational numbers r and r0, determine whether there exists a 2-bridge knot K(~r) such that K(~r) ¸ K(r) and K(~r) ¸ K(r0). In other words, ¯nd an algorithm to determine whether there exists such a 2-bridge knot K(~r) or not. If it is possible to answer the above problem, we can describe the Hasse diagram of 2-bridge knots with respect to the partial order ¸. 2 Extensions of Burau representation of the braid groups (Hiroshi Matsuda) ¡1 Burau [9] introduced a representation 'n : Bn ! M(n; Z[t; t ]) of the braid group Bn de¯ned by 0 1 Ii¡1 OO O B O 1 ¡ t t O C ' (σ ) = B C ; n i @ O 1 0 O A O OO In¡(i+1) where σ1; ¢ ¢ ¢ ; σn¡1 denote the usual generators of Bn. He constructed from 'n a knot invariant which is essentially equal to the Alexander polynomial ¢K (t) of a knot K. 2 I propose to extend 'n by choosing a non-commutative algebra ­ instead of Z[t; t¡1]. Consider a mapping de¯ned by 0 1 Ii¡1 OO O B O ® ¯ O C à (σ ) = B C ; n i @ O γ ± O A O OO In¡(i+1) µ ¶ ® ¯ where ®; ¯; γ; ± 2 ­. We suppose that is invertible in M(2; ­). The above γ ± mapping can be extended to a representation Ãn : Bn ! M(n; ­) if ®; ¯; γ; ± sat- isfy some polynomial equations derived from the relation Ã3(σ1)Ã3(σ2)Ã3(σ1) = Ã3(σ2)Ã3(σ1)Ã3(σ2). When the inverses of ® and ¯ exist, those polynomial equa- tions are simpli¯ed as follows, 8 <> γ = ®¡1¯¡1®(1 ¡ ®); ± = 1 ¡ ®¡1¯¡1®¯; (1) :> ¯®¡1¯¡1® ¡ ®¡1¯¡1®¯ ¡ ® + ¯¡1®¯ = 0: (In general, we do not have to assume the existence of ®¡1 and ¯¡1.) Problem 2.1 (H. Matsuda). Choosing your favorite algebra ­ with unit 1, construct a knot invariant from the above representation Ãn. When ­ = M(2; C), it is shown in [58] that there is a 6-parameter family of solutions of (1) and we can construct a knot invariant from the corresponding repre- sentation Ãn, though it might be equal to the product ¢K (t1)¢K (t2) of two copies of the Alexander polynomial. 3 A conjugation sub-quandle of PSL(2; Fq) (Yuichi Kabaya) n Let p be a prime, and let Fq be the ¯nite ¯eld of order q = p . We de¯ne the F2 n f g f§ g quandle Xq to be the set ( q 0 )= 1 with the binary operation given by µ ¶ ¡ ¢ ¡ ¢ ¡ ¢ 1 + c d d2 c0 d0 ¤ c d = c0 d0 : ¡c2 1 ¡ c d We see that Xq can be regarded as a sub-quandle of the conjugation quandle of PSL(2; Fq), as follows. A conjugation quandle of a group is the group with the ¤ ¡1 F binary operation x y = y xyµ. Let¶ PSL(2; q) be the projective special linear 1 1 group over F , and put h = . Let X0 be the sub-quandle fg¡1hg j g 2 q 0 1 q F g F 0 PSL(2; q) of the conjugation quandle of PSL(2; q). Then, Xq can naturally be identi¯ed with Z(h)nPSL(2; Fq), where Z(h) denotes the centralizer of h. Further, 3 n µ ¶ o 1 ¤ ¡ ¢ since Z(h) = , Z(h) is equal to the stabilizer of 0 1 with respect to 0 1 F F2 ! 0 the right action of PSL(2; q) on q. Thus, weµ have¶ an isomorphism Xq Xq ¡ ¢ a b taking 0 1 g to g¡1hg. That is, putting g = , this is the isomorphism µ ¶ c d ¡ ¢ 1 + c d d2 taking c d to . ¡c2 1 ¡ c d Many knots admit non-trivial colorings by Xq. Let K be a hyperbolic knot. Then 3 3 3 we have a holonomy representation ' : ¼1(S nK) ! PSL(2; C) so that H ='(¼1(S n K)) is isometric to S3 n K. In particular, ' takes each meridian to a parabolic element of PSL(2; C), which is conjugate to h. Since the holonomy representation ' is characterized by a ¯nite number of algebraic equations in PSL(2; C), ' is conjugate to a representation into PSL(2; F) for some ¯nite extension ¯eld F of Q. Further, in many cases,2 ' is conjugate to a representation into PSL(2; O), where O is the ring of algebraic integers of F. Let p be a prime ideal of O over (p) ½ Z. Then the residue ¯eld O=p is an extension of Fp, and hence it is isomorphic to Fq with some n 3 q = p . This induces a representation ¼1(S n K) ! PSL(2; Fq). Further, it induces a Xq-coloring of a knot diagram D of K, where a Xq-coloring of a knot diagram D is a map from the set of arcs of D to Xq which satis¯es the relation shown in Figure 1 at each crossing of D. We can naturally regard a Xq-coloring of D as a quandle homomorphism from the knot quandle of K to Xq. x y x ¤ y Figure 1: De¯nition of a coloring at a crossing Problem 3.1 (Y. Kabaya). Compute the quandle (co)homology of Xq. ¤ F ! ¤ p We have a natural map H (PSL(2; q)) HQ(Xq). It is known [69] that \vol + ¡1 CS" of a 3-manifold can be presented by using a 3-cocycle of PSL(2; C), where \vol" and \CS" denote the hyperbolic volume and the Chern-Simons invariant; see also [35] for such a presentationp using a quandle 3-cocycle. We expect that invariants like \mod p version" of \vol + ¡1 CS" are obtained from cocycles of Xq. When q = 2, X2 is isomorphic to the dihedral quandle R3. When q = 3, X3 is isomorphic to the Alexander quandle Z[T §1]=(2;T 2 + T + 1). ~ F2 n f g We de¯ne the quandle Xq to be the set q 0 with the same binary operation ~ as Xq. The quotient map Xq ! Xq is a central extension of Xq by Z=2Z; see [14] for the de¯nition of quandle extensions. This extension seems to be non-trivial. 2For example, if the knot complement has no closed essential surface, the holonomy representation ' is conjugate to a representation into PSL(2; O); see e.g. [57, Theorem 5.2.5], [87, Theorem 6.7.5]. Note also that, even if ' was 3 not conjugate to a representation into PSL(2; O), ' induces a representation ¼1(S n K) ! PSL(2; Fq) in a similar way, for all but ¯nitely many p. 4 `0 1´ `¡t2 1´ `0 1´ `t(1+t2) ¡t´ `t 0´ Figure 2: A general non-trivial Xq-coloring of a diagram of the ¯gure-eight knot For example, we show a general non-trivial Xq-coloring of a diagram of the ¯gure- eight knot in Figure 2.